Can Someone Help Me Understand the Appeal of Joni Mitchell?

[open-road-matt]

I grew up listening to tons of folk singer/songwriters from her era but I never heard Joni Mitchell. I heard others sing about her:

"Hearing Joni Mitchell feels as good as smoking grass." Kris Kristofferson.

I listen to a lot of Sirius radio and have really been enjoying The Bridge. They call it mellow rock and it's Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, Elton John, Billy Joel, Dylan, Linda Ronstadt, CSN, Neil Young, etc. I really like everything they play.....until Joni Mitchell comes on. Wow is that awful stuff!

I just heard California and they play Chelsea Morning a lot. I have been so disappointed in what I've heard from her. Am I just not hearing the right songs? Does she do that vocal thing on every song? Do they all sound like she hit record and just made the song up on the spot? Am I missing something?

I'm rewriting Kris' quote to "hearing Joni Michell feels as good as being stuck in traffic."

Help!
Matt

[dberch]

Don't worry about it, Matt. Not everyone has to like Joni Mitchell. Or K&K pickups

David

[rmyAddison]

Joni Mitchell get a lot of respect from her peers, and since they "made it" I have to give them a lot of respect and consider their evaluations as qualified, some big names in the "biz" really like Joni Mitchell.

I was never a huge fan myself, I am not nuts about her voice, but like a guy named Bob Dylan she can write with the best of them and also earned props for her many experimentations with alternate guitar tunings.

But I hear you, I like a lot of her songs...when sombody else covers them. To me her lyrics and music are much stronger than her voice. My personal favorite (not on YouTube I checked) is not one of her better known songs, a duet she did with Don Henley of "Snakes and Ladders", it gives me goosebumps!

Here is a soundbyte from Amazon, good stuff.........killer chorus "She.............."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=dm_mu_dp_trk8

[speedobreedo]

Oh Matt, yes you are listening to the wrong songs. Not that the songs are bad but I agree her voice can get a little screechy at times on the earlier recordings BUT as she matured things changed a lot.
Her album "Blue" of course changed a lot of perspectives and anything after that for the next 10 years was a huge influence on many and contains some great music.
Try "Hissing Of Summer Lawns" or Court and Spark" or "Hejira".
It's certainly not folk music anymore!
Also two great live albums, "Miles Of Aisles" with Robben Ford and Tom Scott or "Shadows and Light" with Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius.
The later albums are hit and miss although "Turbulent Indigo" is a personal favorite.
She's not everyone's cup of tea but she has been a huge influence and very ground breaking in a number of ways.

[rlouie]

Joni was an incredible singer/songwriter..................different strokes for different folks I guess.............10 Grammy's says someone thought she was good.....

I love this pic.....................

[Raystrack]

Joni's first album is unlike anything else ever written and that in itself is amazing. She wrote using open tunings when only a few did and they were mainly instrumentalists. Her melodies were original, exquisite and her lyrics emotional and cinematic.

Song To A Seagull is up there in my top 5 all time great albums alongside Revolver and Pet Sounds. Blue was also ground-breaking but too piano-oriented and doleful for my tastes. Most of my muso mates rate Hejira highly but I thought the melodies were lacking on that one though Jaco was ace. I agree that I don't always like her octave-jumping.

Kristofferson on the other hand is a joke and was booed off stage at the Isle Of Wight Festival here in the UK - Americana of the most vapid and derivative variety.

[ukeforever]

Fourth of July

Big Yellow Taxi

I have to say the appeal is her fearless use of alternate tunings that pull that rich sound out of her guitars, and of course, her great taste in guitars!

[rlouie]

you should have never started this thread..................it will soon be full of great Joni Mitchel songs.....................

Amelia.....................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bFgxKov8Ts

[billv]

Originally Posted by rlouie

you should have never started this thread..................it will soon be full of great Joni Mitchel songs.....................

Amelia.....................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bFgxKov8Ts

Ain't it the truth...

Well, i would say that if you are interested, do more research on Joni and listen to a lot more of her music. There's quite a bit there and she really was quite influential throughout her career.

[min7b5]

Joni Mitchell is up there with Coltrane and Bach for me.

Her records from about Blue on -Hejira in particular- do it for me in a very very big way. I really don’t listen to vocal music at all anymore. Of the 20K tunes I have on tunes, there’s almost no singing, except for Joni, and handful of others. But Joni is just in a whole different category...

To me, her writing is intelligent and poetic, her voice -in it’s prime, was like that of jazz singer. I love her guitar and piano style as well. Her guitar tunings -of which she has dozens and dozens, are amazing. Some of the players are great too. The albums of her’s that Jaco Pasterious played bass on are to me his very best work.... In my mind Joni Mitchell is truly one of the greats of western music.

[Akubra]

I know a lot of other Jazz musicians and singers that dig Joni for one reason or another. Personally, my favorite is Blue, far and away. For me, though, it's evocative of the summer of my 19th year, 1977. Some music kind of carries you back and makes you feel the same way, Blue is like that for me. Summer in the Smokies, living at an amphitheater in Gatlinburg, much jamming and good times, and the girls I was involved with, of course.

The wind is in from Africa, last night I couldn't sleep.

[open-road-matt]

Originally Posted by dberch

Don't worry about it, Matt. Not everyone has to like Joni Mitchell. Or K&K pickups

David

Thanks David!

Originally Posted by Raystrack

Kristofferson on the other hand is a joke and was booed off stage at the Isle Of Wight Festival here in the UK - Americana of the most vapid and derivative variety.

I only brought up the Kris quote because it is one example of my hearing someone singing about Joni Mitchell. I did not want to start a "Joni Mitchell is great, so-and-so sucks" thread. Some of my earliest memories are of listening to Kris on vinyl with my Dad on an old Fisher turntable. His songs have been with me my whole life. His live show was one of the worst I've ever seen, a huge disappointment. I'll give you that but if you can't appreciate Kris as a writer then we probably don't have a lot of musical common ground.

I appreciate all of the info so far. I'm not trying to be a jerk here at all. I really did start this post to try and get a better understanding of her music. Like I said, I have heard about her for years. I always intended to track down some of her stuff and educate myself but I never got around to it.

So my next question is, if I could go and buy ONE Joni Mitchell record to help me get the best grasp of who she is as a writer, a singer and a player, which record should that be? I have a 17 hour drive coming up and I could use some new music.

Thanks again
Matt

[rlouie]

for me it would have to be Hejira

I looked a coyote right in the face
On the road to baljennie near my old home town
He went running thru the whisker wheat
Chasing some prize down
And a hawk was playing with him
Coyote was jumping straight up and making passes
He had those same eyes - just like yours
Under your dark glasses
Privately probing the public rooms
And peeking thru keyholes in numbered doors

Where the players lick their wounds
And take their temporary lovers
And their pills and powders to get them thru this passion play

[66strummer]

Matt.....

The only one I was ever real familiar with from her was Help Me but I love that tune. A lot of the rest of them don't do much for me and I like a very wide range of music which includes a ton of stuff from the 70s. I like the Joni Mitchell and K&K comment from earlier. That about says it. We all have our preferences, and certainly can't all like the same things.....

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by open-road-matt

So my next question is, if I could go and buy ONE Joni Mitchell record to help me get the best grasp of who she is as a writer, a singer and a player, which record should that be?

Joni's a bit of a chameleon, so there are different "Joni's" to hear, but if you know nothing about her, I'd start with an early classic, Blue. That's kind of definitive early Joni, and helped launch the whole singer/songwriter angst thing. Has to be on many people's lists of best albums. Just Joni on guitar, dulcimer and piano.

On the other hand, Court and Spark is more pop, with Larry Carlton, Tom Scott and LA Express doing their thing, depends on what you like. Might make that #2. From there, her more esoteric stuff can be explored.

Remember when you're listening to someone like Joni, that you're hearing an original, someone tons of people have copied since. Try to imagine you're hearing her do this first, not after 40 years of other people copying her. if you find yourself thinking "Whats the big deal, she sounds like X?", wrong, it's that X copied Joni.